WUXI, China, April 10, 2025 – USA’s Jaelyn Liu and Egypt’s Abdelrahman Tolba won gold medals in junior women’s and men’s individual foil on the fourth day of the 2025 Wuxi, China Junior and Cadet Fencing World Championships. The 9-day, 18-event competition is being held at the Wuxi Taihu International Expo Center, and today’s events included 151 women and 161 men competing.
Liu faced Italy’s Matilde Molinari in the final bout of junior women’s individual foil, winning with a 14-12 score. In the semifinal round, Molinari won against Polina Volobueva (AIN), 15-14, while Liu defeated Canada’s Jessica Zi Jia Guo, 15-11.
“I’m really happy, it was a really tiring day, I’m really fulfilled”, said Liu. “All my fencing today was on-point, and I was ‘feeling it.’ It was a pretty fun day, and I didn’t really have too many difficulties. The last bout was my hardest, because it was a fight with my endurance and I wanted to fight my best. I was able to slow down, observe better, see how it works, and I was able to pull the score back closer, and eventually win.”
Tolba faced Aleksandr Kerik (AIN) in the final bout of junior men’s individual foil, winning with a 15-5 score. In the semifinal round, Kerik won against Yahor Rabtsau (AIN), 15-10, while Tolba defeated Pavel Puzankov (AIN), 15-13.
“I’m at a loss for words, I’ve been working for this for a long time and it finally happened”, said Tolba. “Today started off a bit rocky, but with every bout it just kept getting better…I was down 13-9 in the finals but I was able to maintain my focus and come back. I was dreaming about this for three months every single day. This is a milestone.”
Final rankings in junior women’s individual foil included Jaelyn Liu (USA, gold), Matilde Molinari (ITA, silver), Jessica Zi Jia Guo (CAN, bronze), Polina Volobueva (AIN, bronze), Katerina Lung (USA), Nok Sze Daphne Chan (HKG), Kristina Petrova (UKR) and Enqi Jiao (CHN).
Final rankings in junior men’s individual foil included Abdelrahman Tolba (EGY, gold), Aleksandr Kerik (AIN, silver), Pavel Puzankov (AIN, bronze), Yahor Rabtsau (AIN, bronze), Valerii Kornilov (AIN), Yifan Guo (CHN), Takushin Tanaka (JPN) and Radmir Semeneev (UZB).
Complete and official results for these events may be found here on the FIE web site. For more exciting world fencing news and features, check out the YouTube FIE Fencing Channel. Find official photos from this and other events on the FIE Facebook page.